The sticky rice cake is an essential part of the Chinese New Year. In fact, this cake is called “Nián gāo” (年糕), which is a homonym to “high year” (年高). So when saying “New Year cake”, one implies that the coming year is going to be good.

Soak the rice in cold water the day before, or at least 4 hours before preparing the cake. Soak the jujubes 1 hour in lukewarm water.
Rince the rice, place in the rice cooker, add water to 1cm above the rice (if there’s too much water, the rice will become mushy). Cook the rice. Once cooked, stir vigorously, crushing the rice with a spatula.
Pit the jujubes. Using a mortar and pestly, crush the jujubes along with the whole sugar. Otherwise, crush them together in a large bowl with the end of a rolling pin.
Oil small bowls, place a layer of sticky rice in each, then a layer of sweetened jujubes, and then another layer of rice. Add a few jujubes on the last layer of rice, for decoration.